187: Ride or Die

Remember “Office Space,” Mike Judge’s hilarious comedy about a bunch of nerdy office workers? If so, then you’ll surely remember Michael Bolton, the scrawny white guy who imagined he was a hardcore gangsta all the time, but was as meek as a church mouse in reality? Apparently, his doppelganger is alive and well at Ubisoft, as their latest release — 187: Ride or Die, shows just that kind of “I want to be gangsta but am really a lame suburban poseur” mentality. This game is bad, and is nowhere near the quality we’ve come to expect (and enjoy) from Ubisoft. Frankly, it’s barely $20 worth of game, much less the $49 they are asking for it. 187: Ride or Die is a Grade A stinker, and should hang like an albatross from the necks of the executives who green-lighted this sorry attempt at “urban sensibility.”

187: Ride or Die’s gameplay, if you can call it that, consists of driving around and shooting other drivers. That’s it. Ok, there are power-ups (machine guns, heavy guns, ammo, etc.) to pick up on the track, and you can unlock better cars, but really, it’s simplistic to the point of being insulting. For those that thought Need for Speed: Underground was a simplified racer, just wait until you try this game. Anyone can keep the car on the track and earn points for kills and tricky moves. It takes no skill.
Graphically, it’s a fair looking game, akin to something we saw when the Xbox first shipped. It barely (if at all) pushes the hardware (or my HD-TV) in any way, looking marginally better than Crazy Taxi 2 did on the Dreamcast. The provided screenshots look a heck of a lot better than the real game does. The cutscenes are really the only graphical high points.

Ah, speaking of the cutscenes, these are apparently only in the game so the developers can show off their street ‘cred in the F-bomb laced tirades about “who’s the most ‘core mother f**er.” The dialog is crap, plain and simple, it’s nothing more than someone cribbing quotes from a group of suburban kids outside a school. You don’t really care about the fact that top-tier actors did the voice work when it’s this weak.
Lest I forget, there is online multiplayer available in 187: Ride or Die, but after buying this game, you’ll be far too embarrassed to announce your ownership of it by going online.

I’d honestly like to think I’m being overly sensitive about this game, but frankly, it does nothing good for the action or racing genres, and can’t even hold a candle to something like Crazy Taxi. Heck, I’d probably play Blood Wake on Xbox over this stinker. If you’re thinking about this game for PS2, then I suggest you run and grab one of the Twisted Metal titles, you know, those games that are several years older, but more fun than this one?

— Craig Falstaff